Telecoms firm offers work to ex-Corus staff

A telecoms firm has teamed up with the AEEU and Corus to
create 4,000 jobs for redundant manufacturing workers over the next two years.

EXi Telecoms’ project will offer retraining and full-time
permanent employment in the telecommunications industry to manufacturing
employees who face redundancy. But Allan Johnston, personnel director of Corus,
said realistically it would create “hundreds of jobs rather than thousands”.

Sir Ken Jackson, general secretary of AEEU, said, “This will
be a genuinely radical way of dealing with the threat of redundancies at Corus.
We can offer our members at Corus a chance to retrain for a new job with new
skills.”

However, rival union the ISTC accused it of raising
unrealistic expectations.